My First Day as a Real Teacher!
First off, everything went much better than expected ☺ No great tragedy, and all my kids seem like sweeties.
I still need to work more on flow and connecting things up w/ explanations. Like we did the card game, which I was happy how fun & competitive it was! But I had so many ELA explanations and justifications for designing the game like I did that didn't get explained to them. Big missed opportunity to connect something fun to something relevant/productive.
Another change I would make: for the class expectations, only a few people talked & suggested. It didn't feel like a truly whole-class agreement... Next time I'll give them 5 min to chat in groups and list ideas before sharing. Maybe let everyone walk around and write so they don't even have to talk?
My Second Day as a Real Teacher!
Tara let me go on my own today, just me (on 3 hrs of sleep... oof) and Coach Gates and Ms. Lane. Went surprisingly well for my expectations! Grates helped out a lot more, talked. I think maybe he's less intimidated to get into it when Tara isn't here? Had some great rapport between me, him, and Tora. She's a big talker, her table is gonna really carry.
We finished up way early because I got ahead of myself. I should have taken the time to slow down and model, and then we probably would have had more ideas from kids, and I wouldn't have skipped group work. That method flow worked wayyy better in 3rd. Only 7 kids in there, and we had AWESOME chat! Everyone participated at least a little, and I think it was really getting through when I could bounce off them and go on a tangent to explore. I also chatted with Cain about their name, really glad I did. Very sweet kid :) I'm going to write their real name on feedback and stuff.
My Third Day
Definitely cleaned it up between 2nd and 3rd on vocab, went much faster.
Things needs fixing:
1. Card grouping. Dist. was uneven so people were extra confused, excuse to waffle. Need to have really explicit groupings/partners ready before class. Saved a lot of time once I let them stay in same groups. Maybe helped them keep getting more comfy with each other too?
2. PHONES. Talked w/ Tara, definitely need to crack down tomorrow. They're still trying to test the boundaries… I think I'm going to make a phone pocket chart for everyone. Ugh it frustrates me because I want to be nice, and I thought this would be fun enough to keep them off phones (would you rather game). Maybe it would help if we did more, shorter activities to stop boredom setting in? Like Daniya suggested.
3. Vocab. Next time, I'm going to try letting them go write it down at their own pace from the Pear Deck? Need to check with Lane.
4. Coach Gates, need to have a more in-depth convo about getting him to help w/ class management.
My 4th Day
I talked a lot with Yunus last night about the phone issue and came up with plan: check in w/ kids via Pear Deck about why they get on their phones, and then agree to a halfway point 5 min tech break, as long as I don't see phones all thru class. It turned out super well!! No phones in 2nd, couple at end of class in 3rd. Maybe move tech break to 3/4th of class after lunch, so the reward motivator is still there? Still, I'm glad I held conviction for my idea, even though Tara wanted me to be more of a hardass.
3rd went better lesson-wise because I did less whole-class talk (where 1 or 2 big talkers), and more small group. Got to hear everyone talk except Monica. Not sure how to figure her out yet, didn't even reply when asked if she's ok.
Also need to figure out how to grade the vocab notes for completion, since I don’t want to violate their journal privacy.
The First Friday
I went to ask Ms. Doolittle about her Friday sticky notes before class and got some insight! She uses them as a conversation starter, just to keep in touch and have a quick moment for a connection. Tried it in my classes today and I really like it :) I also tried doing a 1st week check-in Q on google classroom. Got some good insights who will need extra attention, so I'm going to keep that up weekly too.
We started actually writing today, which was kind of a mess to me. I didn't fully model what I wanted them to do, which meant a lot more 1-on-1 questions. I'm glad we switched to Killer Mike's speech first though, they're definitely more into it than Obama.
Big issue: Summarizing and paraphrasing instead of analyzing and putting own ideas. Need to figure out model for Tuesday. Cell phones still going well, though, yay!
I also need to take some time to figure out my position on the speech. I felt unprepared to respond fully when kids like Ryan were explaining their really strong position based on own experiences of racism.
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